Between Atheism and Pseudo-Christianity: The Place of Religion in Russian Medicine and EducationDmitry Balalykin,DMS, DHS, N. A. Semashko National Research Institute of Public Health

Medical education, medical science and the daily life of Russian hospitals are characterized by existence in the form of a “split consciousness”. On the one hand, the principle of “separation of church from state” is being declared and fixed. In this regard, the leaders of the past communist regime would envy such secular persistence of officials of the Ministry of Education and Health.

On the other hand, many acting scientists, doctors and their patients believe in God (most of believers are Orthodox Christians). There are many churches and chapels opened in hospitals as a result of manager’s private initiative.

My own fifteen years’ experience as a professor, head of the largest Russian medical university Department and a Chairman of the Ethical Committee shows an absolute lack of legal possibility to protect the religious rights and freedoms of both doctors and patients. It does not look like persecution of religion, but takes the form of religious problem silence.

In Russia, there are no legislative and institutional mechanisms for the registration of the rights of believers in medical practice, science and education. The principle of secularity turns into the principle of atheism, which affects the education problem, and even the possibility of religious utterances in educational literature.

The basic regulatory mechanisms are Federal Law on Education in Russian Federation No. 273-FZ andFederal Law No. 323-FZ on Basics of Health Protection of the Citizens in the Russian Federation. The application of the first can be briefly explained by the following principle: one cannot say that God exists because it violates the principle of secular education; one can say that there is no God as this corresponds to the principle of secular education.​The Federal Law No. 323-FZ does not provide for any institutional forms of protecting the religious rights of doctors or patients. The only quiet hopeful exception is the paragraph 3, article 70 of the Federal Law, according to which the doctor has the right to refuse the patient to procure an abortion, if this is consistent with his religious beliefs. However, this article is not direct, because there is neither the word “religion” nor the phrase “religious beliefs” in the Law. The law only indicates the personal beliefs of a doctor of any kind.